Liberals still glow when they talk about comedian Stephen Colbert ripping into President Bush at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2006. He told Bush they were alike. "We're not some brainiacs on the nerd patrol," Colbert announced. "I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the 'No Fact Zone.'"
Nothing like that has happened to President Obama at these dinners. At this late date in Obama's tenure, the process seems entrenched: They giddily await his performance and when it's over, salivate over it. It's rather embarrassing, actually.
This year's guest comedian, Cecily Strong (from "Saturday Night Live") announced ahead of time that she thought Obama was "an amazingly funny guy" and "maybe our funniest president." She adored Colbert's anti-Bush routine as "the coolest thing I have ever seen done." But she promised she'd say nothing "mean."
President Obama joked about his own executive actions during his stand-up comedy routine this year. Asked if he had a "bucket list," he joked: "Well, I have something that rhymes with bucket." Immigration executive action? "Bucket!" he cracked. Stricter emissions regulations? "Bucket! It's the right thing to do."
Imagine Ronald Reagan using this formulation to advance deporting people who came to this country illegally and disbanding the EPA. Not in a million years would any of them find an ounce of humor in his words.
Yet our pro-Obama media celebrated this F-bomb-tweaking shtick as one of the "funniest" jokes he made. They think it's funny because they zealously support his agenda, and care not at all about executive overreach -- as long as the executives are liberal.
Obama's contempt for the Republican-controlled Congress is transparent. Liberal journalist Ezra Klein insisted Obama wasn't joking at all. When Obama cracked that Dick Cheney was the "worst president of my lifetime," Klein wrote: "It's funny, sure. But he's not kidding. ... The humor is in the shock of him actually saying it."
Obama also brought in Keegan-Michael Key of Comedy Central's "Key & Peele" show. In their usual routine, his partner Jordan Peele plays Obama, while Key plays "Luther the Anger Translator," saying the insulting things Obama would like to say, but never does.
In their fantasyland, liberals think Obama never makes snide and cutting remarks. This means they ignored Obama in this comedy routine caustically mocking Cheney, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and even Martin O'Malley.
Then "Luther" came in to "translate" Obama mocking the press, singling out Fox News for panicking people about Sharia in Cleveland and CNN for panicking people about the Ebola virus. The assembled reporters howled.
But the routine ended by Obama getting so angry about so-called "climate change" that the "anger translator" had to calm him down. He bizarrely claimed, "Nine of the 10 hottest years ever came in the last decade." Talk about a "No Fact Zone." Those scholars at PolitiFact never noticed ... and they've fact-checked jokes before.
Then Obama started to yell. "Every serious scientist says we need to act. The Pentagon says it's a national security risk. Miami floods on a sunny day, and instead of doing anything about it, we've got elected officials throwing snowballs in the Senate! ... It is crazy! What about our kids? What kind of stupid, shortsighted, irresponsible, bull----"
The media elite boisterously laughed. The liberal blog Think Progress posted this routine with the headline "Obama Finally Gets Angry At Climate Science Deniers And It's Hilarious."
They said this was Obama's best climate-change speech, and before the perfect audience, the media elites, because they've been "wildly underplaying the story of the century for a long, long time."
That claim really deserves a raucous laugh track.